Courses for Writers with Jon LaPoma

Preparing to Self-Publish 101 (free course)

Follow a step-by-step guide with the most up-to-date and comprehensive information on how to prepare your manuscript for self-publication, taught by a certified teacher with over ten years of classroom experience.

Have you written the first draft of a book but have no idea what to do with it? Have you heard other authors discuss words like “formatting” and “ISBNs” but have no idea what these are?

Preparing to Self-Publish 101 will help you to prepare your manuscript to be sold on stores like Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com, iBooks, and Kobo (but it won’t show you how to sell on these stores), through a series of screencasts that show you step-by-step everything you’ll need to create a beautiful, high-quality book that readers will love.

This course will cover:

  • How to edit and format your book
  • How to design a cover
  • How to write an effective book blurb
  • How to register an ISBN
  • How to determine your book’s BISAC codes, and why these are so important
  • How to register a copyright (in the US)
  • How to get reviews for your book

Just to be clear, this course does not give any strategies on how to write a book, nor will it teach you how to sell the book in stores, but rather it will teach you everything you need to know to prepare your book to be sold in stores.

I’ve included the most up-to-date, proven and effective strategies to help authors of all budgets create the highest-quality book possible.

I’m an award-winning, bestselling author of three independently published novels that have outsold authors such as Chuck Palahniuk, Michael Crichton, and Kurt Vonnegut on Amazon’s Kindle store. Two of my three novels have been recommended by Kirkus Reviews and my most recent, The Summer of Crud, was selected to the Barnes & Noble B&N Press Picks list for February/March 2018. I’ve also written eleven screenplays that have won over 150 awards/honors in various international screenwriting competitions, and in July 2017, I optioned one of those screenplays to one of the producers of the American Pie and Final Destination films. I currently live in San Diego, CA and teach at a public secondary school.

Achieving success as a self-published author is often a long-term journey, and preparing your manuscript for publication is a crucial step that, if done correctly, will help you to increase your chances of maximizing sales and growing your readership once your book has been published. I’m ready when you are to take that step of this journey together.

To sign up for free, click the box below and let me know where to send you the link to the course.

Enroll now!

About the Instructor

Jonathan LaPoma is an award-winning, bestselling author, optioned screenwriter, songwriter, and poet based in San Diego, CA. He’s written three independently published novels, eleven screenplays that have won over 150 awards/honors in various screenwriting competitions, and hundreds of songs and poems.

LaPoma’s novels Developing Minds: An American Ghost Story and Understanding the Alacrán are both #1 Amazon Bestsellers, outselling authors such as Neil Gaiman, Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Crichton, and Paulo Coelho on the Kindle store. His books have been recommended by Kirkus Reviews and Barnes & Noble (B&N Press Presents selection), and they’ve won awards in the 2015 Stargazer Literary Prizes and the 2016 and 2017 Florida Authors and Publishers Association President’s Awards. His black comedy screenplay Harm for the Holidays was optioned by Warren Zide along with Wexlfish Pictures (American PieFinal DestinationThe Big Hit) in July 2017. LaPoma usually writes character-driven dramas that are equal parts dark and humorous, and his work often explores themes of alienation and misery as human constructions that can be overcome through self-understanding and the acceptance of suffering.

Also, since 2005, LaPoma has taught in over fifteen public schools in New York, Florida, and California, and he currently teaches at a secondary school in San Diego where he’s beginning his ninth year.

LaPoma enjoys helping new authors overcome their fears and doubts so they can write the books they’re inspired to write.

Enroll now!